April 2 (Bloomberg) -- A British nuclear submarine joined
the hunt for the missing Malaysian plane in the southern Indian
Ocean as the mystery entered its 26th day.

The HMS Tireless “has been tasked to assist in the
humanitarian search mission for Flight MH370” and is in the
area being searched, Sarah Corcoran, a spokeswoman for the
British High Commission in Canberra, said by e-mail.

Ten planes and nine ships were deployed today to comb an
area about 221,000 square kilometers off Perth, Australia’s
Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. The
submarine was accompanied by survey ship HMS Echo, Malaysia’s
Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in a Twitter
posting today.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is scheduled to arrive
in Western Australia later today. The cause of the disappearance
of the Malaysian Airline System Bhd. jet might never be known,
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said at a briefing in
Kuala Lumpur, according to a recording provided by a member of
his communications staff.

“The investigation may go on and on and on,” Khalid said.
“At the end of the investigation, we may not even know what is
the real cause.”

Police have interviewed more than 170 people, including
relatives and acquaintances of the 227 passengers and 12 crew
members of Flight 370, Khalid said.

Najib Visit

“The chances of finding debris are not getting any
better,” Jason Middleton, head of the University of New South
Wales’s School of Aviation, said from Sydney. “It comes back to
the lack of flight data and any eyewitnesses.”

Najib plans to visit Base Pearce near Perth, the Australian
air force facility that’s the hub of the search for the Boeing
Co. 777-200ER that vanished March 8 with 239 passengers and crew
on board.

The HMS Tireless, a Trafalgar-class attack submarine
launched in 1984, has a top speed of 32 knots. Trafalgar-class
submarines have been modified for other roles such as
surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the British navy’s
website.

Conflicting Statements

The HMS Echo, launched in 2002, can collect military
hydrographic and oceanographic data and carries a detachment of
marines, according to the website.

Najib has faced public scorn from China, whose nationals
made up about two-thirds of the travelers on Beijing-bound
Flight 370, over his government’s handling of the case. Senior
Malaysian officials have issued conflicting statements about
what is known about the plane and the state of the inquiry,
contributing to the criticism abroad.

“We have nothing to hide,” Paul Low, a minister in the
Prime Minister’s Department in charge of fighting graft, said
yesterday in an interview in Singapore. “Why would we want to
cover up and have an international inquiry at the same time?”

China’s ambassador to Malaysia, Huang Huikang, told
reporters today in Kuala Lumpur that the country has never said
it was angry over the current status of the investigation or
expressed dissatisfaction on the progress of the search. Still,
there are areas of improvement in handling “this unprecedented
incident,” he said.

‘Rare Incident’

“We noticed the coordination between relevant departments
within Malaysia is not too good, the information released wasn’t
consistent,” Huang said. “This needs to be improved in the
future. But honestly, in the face of this rare incident and
major disaster, no one can do this perfectly.”

Investigators have relied on limited contact between Flight
370 and an Inmarsat Plc satellite to draw up a search area in
seas known for four-meter swells and depths that range from
2,000 meters to 4,000 meters (2.5 miles).

Planes and ships from Australia, Malaysia, China, the U.S.,
South Korea, New Zealand and Japan are taking part in the hunt,
which now marks the longest period in modern passenger-airline
history between a disappearance and initial findings of debris.

The previous mark was set when Adam Air Flight 574 went
missing off the coast of Indonesia’s South Sulawesi seven years
ago. The Boeing 737-400, operated by PT Adam Skyconnection
Airlines, lost contact with air traffic control Jan. 1, 2007.
Wreckage wasn’t found until the 10th day of the search.

Australia’s Ocean Shield ship, fitted with equipment to
detect the black box recorders, is heading to the zone. The
recovery effort faces a narrowing window as batteries in the
black box pingers that emit signals only last for about 30 days.

The vessel isn’t projected to reach the region until
tomorrow, and even then the prospect of finding the recorders is
a slim one because the gear towed by the Ocean Shield has a
range of only about a mile.